Download or read book The Architect of Desire written by Suzannah Lessard and published by Delta. This book was released on 2013-01-23 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Stanford White--his scandalous affair with the 16-year-old actress Evelyn Nesbit, his murder in 1906 by her husband, the millionaire Harry K. Thaw, and the hailstorm of publicity that surrounded "the trial of the century"--has proven irresistable to generations of novelists, historians, and biographers. The premier neoclassical architect of his day, White's legacy to the world were such masterpieces as New York's original Madison Square Garden, the Washington Square Arch, and the Players, Metropolitan, and Colony clubs. He was also responsible for the palaces of such clients as the Whitneys, Vanderbilts, and Pulitzers, the robber barons of the Gilded Age whose power and dominance shaped the nation in its heady ascent at the turn of the century. As the century rolled on, however, the story of Stanford White and Evelyn Nesbit came to be viewed as glamorous and romantic, the darker narrative of White's out-of-control sexual compulsion obscured by time. Indeed, White's wife Bessie and his son Larry remained adamantly silent about the matter for the duration of their lives, a silence that reverberated through the next four generations of their extended family. Suzannah Lessard is the eldest of Stanford White's great grandchildren. It was only in her 30's that she began to sense the parallels between the silence about her great-grandfather's life and the silence about her own perilous experience as a little girl in her own home. Thus she became drawn to the remarkable history of her family in order to uncover its hidden truths, and in so doing to liberate herself from its enclosure at last. The result is a multi-layered memoir of astonishing elegance and power, one that, like a great building, is illumined room by room, chapter by chapter, until the whole is clearly seen.
Download or read book Marcel Duchamp and the Architecture of Desire written by Penelope Haralambidou and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While much has been written on Marcel Duchamp - one of the twentieth century's most beguiling artists - the subject of his flirtation with architecture seems to have been largely overlooked. Yet, in the carefully arranged plans and sections organising the blueprint of desire in the Large Glass, his numerous pieces replicating architectural fragments, and his involvement in designing exhibitions, Duchamp's fascination with architectural design is clearly evident. As his unconventional architectural influences - Niceron, Lequeu and Kiesler - and diverse legacy - Tschumi, OMA, Webb, Diller + Scofidio and Nicholson - indicate, Duchamp was not as much interested in 'built' architecture as he was in the architecture of desire, re-constructing the imagination through drawing and testing the boundaries between reality and its aesthetic and philosophical possibilities. Marcel Duchamp and the Architecture of Desire examines the link between architectural thinking and Duchamp's work. By employing design, drawing and making - the tools of the architect - Haralambidou performs an architectural analysis of Duchamp’s final enigmatic work Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas... demonstrating an innovative research methodology able to grasp meaning beyond textual analysis. This novel reading of his ideas and methods adds to, but also challenges, other art-historical interpretations. Through three main themes - allegory, visuality and desire - the book defines and theorises an alternative drawing practice positioned between art and architecture that predates and includes Duchamp.
Download or read book The Architecture of Desire written by Mary Gentle and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2013-07-25 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mercenaries in lace and steel roam the countryside and the heads of criminals are impaled on London Bridge. The characters' relationships are played out in the shadow of the hangman's rope. Sequel to Rats and Gargoyles.
Download or read book Why We Build written by Rowan Moore and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-08-20 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an era of brash, expensive, provocative new buildings, a prominent critic argues that emotions—such as hope, power, sex, and our changing relationship to the idea of home—are the most powerful force behind architecture, yesterday and (especially) today. We are living in the most dramatic period in architectural history in more than half a century: a time when cityscapes are being redrawn on a yearly basis, architects are testing the very idea of what a building is, and whole cities are being invented overnight in exotic locales or here in the United States. Now, in a bold and wide-ranging new work, Rowan Moore—former director of the Architecture Foundation, now the architecture critic for The Observer—explores the reasons behind these changes in our built environment, and how they in turn are changing the way we live in the world. Taking as his starting point dramatic examples such as the High Line in New York City and the outrageous island experiment of Dubai, Moore then reaches far and wide: back in time to explore the Covent Garden brothels of eighteenth-century London and the fetishistic minimalism of Adolf Loos; across the world to assess a software magnate’s grandiose mansion in Atlanta and Daniel Libeskind’s failed design for the World Trade Center site; and finally to the deeply naturalistic work of Lina Bo Bardi, whom he celebrates as the most underrated architect of the modern era.
Download or read book The Absent Hand written by Suzannah Lessard and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Of beach plums, ramps, and Ramada Inns: a quietly sensitive eminently sensible consideration of the landscapes of our lives . . . A gift." —Kirkus Reviews Following her bestselling The Architect of Desire, Suzannah Lessard returns with a remarkable book, a work of relentless curiosity and a graceful mixture of observation and philosophy. This intriguing hybrid will remind some of W. G. Sebald’s work and others of Rebecca Solnit’s, but it is Lessard’s singular talent to combine this profound book–length mosaic— a blend of historical travelogue, reportorial probing, philosophical meditation, and prose poem—into a work of unique genius, as she describes and reimagines our landscapes. In this exploration of our surroundings, The Absent Hand contends that to reimagine landscape is a form of cultural reinvention. This engrossing work of literary nonfiction is a deep dive into our surroundings—cities, countryside, and sprawl—exploring change in the meaning of place and reimagining the world in a time of transition. Whether it be climate change altering the meaning of nature, or digital communications altering the nature of work, the effects of global enclosure on the meaning of place are panoramic, infiltrative, inescapable. No one will finish this book, this journey, without having their ideas of living and settling in their surroundings profoundly enriched.
Download or read book Architecture s Desire written by K. Michael Hays and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2009-10-02 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theorizes an architectural ethos of extreme self-reflection and finality from a Lacanian perspective. While it is widely recognized that the advanced architecture of the 1970s left a legacy of experimentation and theoretical speculation as intense as any in architecture's history, there has been no general theory of that ethos. Now, in Architecture's Desire, K. Michael Hays writes an account of the “late avant-garde” as an architecture systematically twisting back on itself, pondering its own historical status, and deliberately exploring architecture's representational possibilities right up to their absolute limits. In close readings of the brooding, melancholy silence of Aldo Rossi, the radically reductive “decompositions” and archaeologies of Peter Eisenman, the carnivalesque excesses of John Hejduk, and the “cinegrammatic” delirium of Bernard Tschumi, Hays narrates the story of architecture confronting its own boundaries with objects of ever more reflexivity, difficulty, and intransigence. The late avant-garde is the last architecture with philosophical aspirations, an architecture that could think philosophical problems through architecture rather than merely illustrate them. It takes architecture as the object of its own reflection, which in turn produces an unrelenting desire. Using the tools of critical theory together with the structure of Lacan's triad imaginary-symbolic-real, Hays constructs a theory of architectural desire that is historically specific and yet sets the terms and the challenges of all subsequent architectural practice, including today's.
Download or read book Queer Space written by Aaron Betsky and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 1997-03-19 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Building Sex, architecture critic and curator Aaron Betsky looked at how traditional gender roles have influenced architecture. In Queer Space, he examines how same-sex desire is creating an entirely new architecture. Gay men and women are in the forefront of architectural innovation, reclaiming abandoned neighborhoods, redefining urban spaces, and creating liberating interiors out of hostile environments. Queer spaces have arisen out of the experiences of homosexuals in a straight culture. Often forced to hide their true nature, gay men and women have turned inward, playing with the norms of interior space and creating environments of stagecraft and celebration where they can define themselves with out fear. Their experiments point the way to an architecture that can free us all from the imprisoning structures and spaces of the modern city.
Download or read book The Architect written by Nikki Sloane and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the surface, my new boyfriend is a stiff, buttoned-up architect. He plans every detail of his life while carefully maintaining the walls he's built around his heart. But when the biggest project of his career pulls him away, Clay's solution is both temporary and unconventional. It even comes with a name-Travis. This handsome stranger is sweet and thoughtful. He's only meant to be a stand-in, to fulfill my needs under Clay's watchful direction, yet these two men couldn't be more different. The one thing they share? Well, I guess that would be me. One gets off on my pain, the other on my pleasure, and it awakens a desire none of us knew existed. But it can't last. Eventually I'll have to choose. And it's going to destroy us all.
Download or read book Tectonic Acts of Desire and Doubt written by Mark Rakatansky and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time a number of key essays by the New York-based architect and critic Mark Rakatansky is brought together in this instalment in the Architecture Words series published by the Architectural Association.
Download or read book Design written by Jessica Helfand and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling defense for the importance of design and how it shapes our behavior, our emotions, and our lives Design has always prided itself on being relevant to the world it serves, but interest in design was once limited to a small community of design professionals. Today, books on "design thinking" are best sellers, and computer and Web-based tools have expanded the definition of who practices design. Looking at objects, letterforms, experiences, and even theatrical performances, award-winning author Jessica Helfand asserts that understanding design's purpose is more crucial than ever. Design is meaningful not because it is pretty but because it is an intrinsically humanist discipline, tethered to the very core of why we exist. For example, as designers collaborate with developing nations on everything from more affordable lawn mowers to cleaner drinking water, they must take into consideration the full range of a given community's complex social needs. Advancing a conversation that is unfolding around the globe, Helfand offers an eye-opening look at how designed things make us feel as well as how--and why--they motivate our behavior.
Download or read book How to Architect written by Doug Patt and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-02-17 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The basics of the profession and practice of architecture, presented in illustrated A-Z form. The word "architect" is a noun, but Doug Patt uses it as a verb—coining a term and making a point about using parts of speech and parts of buildings in new ways. Changing the function of a word, or a room, can produce surprise and meaning. In How to Architect, Patt—an architect and the creator of a series of wildly popular online videos about architecture—presents the basics of architecture in A-Z form, starting with "A is for Asymmetry" (as seen in Chartres Cathedral and Frank Gehry), detouring through "N is for Narrative," and ending with "Z is for Zeal" (a quality that successful architects tend to have, even in fiction—see The Fountainhead's architect-hero Howard Roark.) How to Architect is a book to guide you on the road to architecture. If you are just starting on that journey or thinking about becoming an architect, it is a place to begin. If you are already an architect and want to remind yourself of what drew you to the profession, it is a book of affirmation. And if you are just curious about what goes into the design and construction of buildings, this book tells you how architects think. Patt introduces each entry with a hand-drawn letter, and accompanies the text with illustrations that illuminate the concept discussed: a fallen Humpty Dumpty illustrates the perils of fragile egos; photographs of an X-Acto knife and other hand tools remind us of architecture's nondigital origins. How to Architect offers encouragement to aspiring architects but also mounts a defense of architecture as a profession—by calling out a defiant verb: architect!
Download or read book Stanford White s New York written by David Lowe and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part architectural retrospective, part biography, and part cultural and social history, this volume is both a brilliant evocation of White's life and times and a portfolio of unforgettable images of his priceless legacy to New York. 141 illustrations.
Download or read book House written by Tracy Kidder and published by HMH. This book was released on 1999-10-15 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pulitzer Prize–winning author brings “clarity, intelligence and grace” to the tale of building a home in this New York Times Bestseller (The New York Times Book Review). It’s 1983 and Jonathan and Judith Souweine are ready to build their forever home on a four-acre lot just outside of Amherst, Massachusetts. A lawyer and a psychologist, neither has much experience with the process. In this New York Times bestseller, Tracy Kidder leads readers through the grand adventure of building the American dream. In his portrayal, constructing a staircase or applying a coat of paint becomes a riveting tale of conflicting wills, the strength and strain of relationships, and pride in craftsmanship. With drama, sensitivity, and insight, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Soul of the New Machine takes us from blueprints to moving day. In the process, he sheds new light on objects usually taken for granted and creates a vivid cast of characters you will not soon forget. “Tracy Kidder has done it again. . . . What might seem like ordinary work takes on an extraordinary, unpredictable life of its own. The subject is fascinating, the book a remarkable piece of craftsmanship in itself.” —Chicago Tribune Book World “Kidder makes us feel with a splendid intensity the complex web of relationships and emotions that inevitably comes into play in the act of bringing a work of architecture to fruition.” —The New York Times Book Review
Download or read book The Architects written by Stefan Heym and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-06 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A novel of political intrigue and personal betrayal, The Architects takes readers inside the German Democratic Republic in the late 1950s, shortly after Khruchchev's so-called secret speech denouncing Stalin brought about the release of many victims of Stalinist brutality. Among them is Daniel Wollin, a Communist who fled Hitler for Moscow and now returns to Germany after years of Soviet imprisonment. A brilliant architect, Daniel is taken in by his former colleague, Arnold Sundstrom, who was in exile in Moscow as well - but somehow fared better. Arnold's young wife, Julia, finds in Daniel the key that will unlock the dark secret of her husband's success and of her own parent's deaths in Russia. A story of suspense, romance, and drama, The Architects is also a window on a harrowing period of history that its author experienced firsthand. Although written in English, it was first published in German in 2000; this is the first publication in its original language." --Book Jacket.
Download or read book The Architecture of Law written by Brian M. McCall and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2018-05-30 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that classical natural law jurisprudence provides a superior answer to the questions “What is law?” and “How should law be made?” rather than those provided by legal positivism and “new” natural law theories. What is law? How should law be made? Using St. Thomas Aquinas’s analogy of God as an architect, Brian McCall argues that classical natural law jurisprudence provides an answer to these questions far superior to those provided by legal positivism or the “new” natural law theories. The Architecture of Law explores the metaphor of law as an architectural building project, with eternal law as the foundation, natural law as the frame, divine law as the guidance provided by the architect, and human law as the provider of the defining details and ornamentation. Classical jurisprudence is presented as a synthesis of the work of the greatest minds of antiquity and the medieval period, including Cicero, Aristotle, Gratian, Augustine, and Aquinas; the significant texts of each receive detailed exposition in these pages. Along with McCall’s development of the architectural image, he raises a question that becomes a running theme throughout the book: To what extent does one need to know God to accept and understand natural law jurisprudence, given its foundational premise that all authority comes from God? The separation of the study of law from knowledge of theology and morality, McCall argues, only results in the impoverishment of our understanding of law. He concludes that they must be reunited in order for jurisprudence to flourish. This book will appeal to academics, students in law, philosophy, and theology, and to all those interested in legal or political philosophy.
Download or read book Civic Spaces and Desire written by Charles Drozynski and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Single story building : the fairytale failure of housing in the UK / Ed Green and Brutus Green -- Hi-ro-shi-ma space : the pathways of post-memory / Kim Roberts -- Unidentified emotional object : when queer desire journeyed to Belgrade (but stayed in its closet) / Marko Jobst.
Download or read book Victor Horta written by David Dernie and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expertly written and exquisitely photographed study of the buildings of Victor Horta, a central figure of Art Nouveau whose work was fundamental to modernist architecture In the decade following the success of his design for the Hôtel Tassel in Brussels in 1893, Victor Horta, the creator of Art Nouveau architecture, produced more than forty buildings—and a movement. Prepared in close collaboration with the Horta Museum, Brussels, Victor Horta: The Architect of Art Nouveau discusses the many influences on Horta’s designs and his legacy. The richly ornamental style of Art Nouveau, characterized by fluid lines based on natural forms, expressed a desire to abandon the historical styles of the nineteenth century and to develop a language that was beautifully crafted and thoroughly contemporary, laying the foundations for the development of modernism in architecture and interior design. Detailed descriptions of nineteen projects representing the full range of Horta’s work—including Edicule Lambeaux, Hôtel Autrique, Hôtel Max Hallet, and the Brugmann Hospital, are illustrated with Horta’s original drawings and specially commissioned photographs by award- winning photographer Alastair Carew-Cox. Extensive photographs of Hôtel Solvay—to which access had been denied for twenty years before Carew-Cox was granted special access, in recognition of his and David Dernie’s significant contribution to the study of Horta—are also included.
